Upon spawning, villagers will leave their homes and begin to explore the village. They will go and explore other buildings, make sounds and frequently open and close doors. Afterwards, they will begin to head to the outskirts of the village, though they will never actually leave the village itself. Occasionally, two villagers may stop, and turn to look at each other, in a behavior called socializing, in which they will stare at a mob or another villager for a few seconds at a time. In the case of players, they will continuously stare at them as long as the player is close enough. When a player attacks a villager, the villager will not run away, but angry particles will fly out from the villager if it is in a village.

Villagers will not willingly fall off high cliffs that would kill them, but may occasionally take fall damage. They will not stay away from fire or cacti, nor change their behavior around them, as with most mobs.

At night, or during a storm, villagers will run inside, closing doors behind them, staying indoors until the morning. In the morning, the villagers will head outside, fleeing from any remaining zombies. Once the zombies are gone, the villagers will resume normal behavior.

There is evidence that villagers are prone to overcrowding certain areas of a village while leaving other areas completely empty. There is speculation that villagers will crowd predictably into set areas; however, exactly which areas has still not been discovered. It has been noticed they crowd their church/watchtower very often at certain times of the day.[1] The overcrowding can lead to villagers swarming into a few houses at night rather than spreading themselves. The sheer amount of villagers trying to enter such a small area can result in a portion of the villagers taking more time to enter the safety of their homes. In extreme cases, some villagers will become stranded outside. There is no known way to prevent this type of overcrowding.

Villagers have eight inventory slots. Villagers will not intentionally seek out items to pick up, but they will collect any bread, carrots, potatoes, wheat, or wheat seeds they happen to come within range of. These are the only items they are able to pick up.

If a villager has enough food in one inventory stack (6 bread or 24 carrots or potatoes, or 18 wheat for Farmers only) and sees a villager without enough food in one inventory stack (3 bread or 12 carrots or potatoes for non-Farmers; 15 bread, 60 carrots or potatoes, or 45 wheat for Farmers), he may decide to share food with that villager.

To share, a villager finds his first inventory stack with at least 4 bread, carrots, or potatoes or with at least 6 wheat, and then throws half the stack (rounded down) in the direction of the target villager. When wheat is shared, it is first crafted to bread which may result in 1 or 2 less than half the stack being shared.

Adult and baby brown-robed villagers, both farmers and other careers, will tend crops within the village boundary. Villagers far enough outside the boundary of any village will also tend nearby crops.

Farmland to be tended is found by seeking for certain blocks up to 15 blocks away from the villager in X and Z and up to 1 away in Y (a 31×31×3 area total).

If a brown-robe does not have enough food in one stack in his inventory (15 bread, 60 carrots or potatoes, or 45 wheat) and finds fully-grown wheat, carrots, or potatoes, he will move to the crop block and break it.

If a brown-robe has any seeds, carrots, or potatoes in his inventory and finds an air block above farmland, he will move to it and plant a crop. They will always plant from the first eligible slot in their inventory.

Baby villagers will sprint around, entering and leaving houses at will. They will also chase each other around the village to simulate that they are playing tag. They will sometimes stop sprinting to stare at an Iron Golem. If the Iron Golem is holding a poppy, the children will cautiously take the flower from its hands.

Unlike other breed-able mobs, the parents and child have no personal interactions other than socializing.

Zombies will find villagers from up to 42 block radius, and will attempt to break down doors. Zombies will only successfully break doors if the difficulty is set to hard; although, only a fraction of zombies spawned in hard mode can break doors. This also applies to zombie pigmen if they path find through a door. Villagers will run away from zombies, which attempt to attack villagers. The villager's only "natural" defense are the Iron Golems, which protect villagers from nearby mobs.

Zombies will kill villagers, or convert them to zombie villagers. The chance that the villager will become a zombie villager on death is 0% on Easy, 50% on Normal, and 100% on Hard. Baby villagers can be infected by zombies as well.

Villagers will mate depending on the number of valid doors. Villagers will then mate until the number of adult villagers equals 35% of the number of doors. Any remaining children will grow up as usual, resulting in a total number of adult villagers somewhere above one third of the number of nearby wooden doors. The type of villager that the child is doesn't depend on what type the parents are.

A valid door is any door within the city radius where the number of "outside" spaces within 5 blocks in a straight line on one side of the door is not the same as the number of "outside" spaces within 5 blocks on the other side of the door. A space is considered to be "outside" if it has nothing but transparent blocks above it all the way to the sky.

The game engine periodically takes a census to determine the current population of the village. All villagers within the horizontal boundary of the village and within 5 vertical blocks of the center will be counted as part of the population to determine if continued villager mating is allowed. However, any villager within the horizontal boundary of the village and within a vertical distance of 32 blocks downwards of the center of the village will attempt to enter mating mode as long as there is at least one villager within the boundary. If two villagers simultaneously enter mating mode while they are close to one another, they will mate with each other and produce a child.

Additionally, villagers must be "willing" in order to breed. After mating, they will no longer be willing, and must be made willing again.

Villagers may become willing when the player trades with them. Willingness is granted the first time a new offer is traded, or at a one-in-five chance on subsequent trades. This will not cause them to immediately seek out a mate, however.

Villagers can also become willing by having either 3 bread, 12 carrots or 12 potatoes in one stack in their inventory. Any villager with an excess of food (usually farmers) will throw food to other villagers, allowing them to pick it up and obtain enough food to become willing. You can also throw bread, carrots, or potatoes at the villagers yourself to encourage breeding. Villagers will consume the required food upon becoming willing.

Each villager has a profession, which can be identified by their clothing. Villagers also have careers specific to their profession. The player can identify a villager's career by reading the title at the top of the trading interface. Below is a table listing the various villagers, with their careers in relation to their professions, as well as the IDs specifying these.

The trading system is a gameplay mechanic that allows players to trade emeralds for items and vice-versa with villagers.Their trades can be good or bad, depending on what the cost is and what items you might get.

Right-clicking a villager will allow a player to trade with them, and display their career. Villagers will make offers based on their profession and career, and will only make trades based on whatever offers they are making. Different offers may be viewed by pressing the left and right buttons next to the currently displayed offer. Most offers involve emerald as a currency, and some item pertinent to the villager's profession and career. Trading allows the acquisition of uncommon items that would otherwise be fairly difficult to obtain, such as chain armor. It is also the only legitimate method of acquiring a Bottle o' Enchanting in survival mode. When villagers get a new trade, purple particles and green cross particles appear.

After trading once, the villager will open a new tier of trades after a short period of time. After a few trades, the villager will lock the trade offer. When this happens, you will have to use another trade offer in the villager's window once, and then wait for a short time and all trades will reopen. There is a maximum number of tiers each villager can possess, varying by career. Once the villager has unlocked all tiers, it will not open any new ones. However, you will still be able to renew all offers by trading.

When a villager gives off particles from a new trade, they get 10 seconds of regeneration, which gives them 8 ().

Villagers will now reassign their profession if there is a lack of a specific profession or if the number of villagers in a profession is unbalanced (i.e., if there are many Farmer villagers and no Blacksmith villagers, one will change its skin, showing it has changed its profession).

Trading has also been changed where an extra input space has been added where tools can be placed for buying enchantments and/or repair.

The files for the generic villager are removed, leaving the texture. Any villagers that were originally generic villagers are now looped to farmers. However, they can still be spawned by using a negative profession ID.

On April 1st 2014, Mojang announced that villagers have taken over the skin servers and content delivery networks (CDN) as an April Fools joke. This caused players' current skin to turn into villager skins. This also caused users to be unable to change their skins. Different career villager skins were used, including the unused generic villager (green robe).

Many of the sounds were also changed, supposedly by the villagers. They seem to be similar to a villager talking (with words, rather than their normal sounds). The in-game music has also been altered to include villager like noises, and also features a villager version of the "Game of Thrones" theme on the title screen. The sounds originate from the sound resource pack created by Element Animation, titled The Element Animation Villager Sound Resource Pack (T.E.A.V.S.R.P), which is based on the villagers appearing in their fan videos. The villagers were voiced by Dan Lloyd, Director of Element Animation.

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